TIME LAPSE VIDEO IN NERJA

I have always wanted to compare some of my camera bodies abilities by submitting them to the time lapse test.Time lapse is defined by taking a series of pictures at same intervals of time and reassembling them in a video at 24 to 30 frames per second in order to get a fast moving scene.The interval between each shot can be as short as one second or as long as an hour, everything depends on what evolution you want to follow.

This type of video primarily serves the purpose of depicting an evolution, be it a sunrise or sunset, a flower blooming etc… Now, I have only tried time lapses with two camera bodies : my Nikon D90 and my Nikon D7100.Why ? Simply because they are the less expensive of my camera bodies and since a timelapse uses the shutter an awful lot, I have always assumed it wasn’t the best of treatment for a camera.

I realized a few of these a few years ago for companies and industries that needed video for long processes for instance (sugar and sweet factories, extractors etc…).They have always been happy with the final result because there barely was any change in the exposure during which the whole set of photos were taken and because the intervals were pretty far apart.Now, for my own pleasure I tried a few sunrises and sunsets and always struggled at the end with either the difference in exposure or the interval between the frames.

For instance, the video I shot a couple of days ago in Nerja, has a scene I deliberately shot at intervals of one second.Guess what, the D7100 cannot handle that much data after a very short while (about 10 pictures) and it starts failing and shoot once every 3 seconds and then a couple of frames at the normal interval and so on and so forth.I was curious to see the final result and since I assumed it would produce lags I choose to manually move the camera around, resulting in a cut clockwise movement that I think goes along with the frames lags.

I don’t know when but probably soon, I will realize another time lapse using the D800 and then one with the D4s.I am not too keen on doing that with either of these bodies but I know they will handle the 1 frame per second much better than the D7100 did.At the end, I’ll post a fair comparison between the camera bodies !